Britain added a fourth medal to their haul last night, as the men's 4x100m relay team took bronze in Berlin. Harry Aikines-Aryeetey brought home the baton in a season's best time of 38.02 sec, the podium finish helped along by the disqualification of the US team in the first round. The British quartet did well to keep their heads against the world record holders Jamaica – Marlon Devonish taking on Usain Bolt, 21-year-old Aikines-Aryeetey running the anchor leg to chase Asafa Powell, and Simeon Williamson and Tyrone Edgar completing the line up.

Aikines-Aryeetey was thrilled to win his first senior medal. "It's absolutely amazing to come through the junior ranks," he said, "and I'm just happy to have competed here with these guys on the world stage and got a bronze medal. In 2010 and 2011 we'll keep banging away to become even better."

For Jamaica, gold was always going to be the order of the day, with Bolt claiming his third of the championships. This time, though, there was no world record. Jamaica won in 37.31 – a championship record – but it was only 0.32 of a second in front of silver medal winners Trinidad and Tobago.

Greg Rutherford had hoped to add to the British medal tally in the long jump yesterday, but the 23-year-old suffered a miserable night after becoming embroiled in a heated debate with the officials over a foul jump. Much had been expected from him after he broke the British record in qualifying with a jump of 8.30 metres, but drama ensued for the youngster who finally finished in fifth place with 8.17m.

Having failed to clear 8m with his first two attempts, and fearing that he may be excluded from the final cut of eight, Rutherford reached 8.18m with his third leap. But the officials were convinced that it was a foul, despite not being able to show any imprint of Rutherford's shoe on the plasticine lining the board. "I looked at the plasticine and I couldn't see the mark, so they took me off to video evidence in the bowels of the stadium to have a look, and still with both of us looking we couldn't decide. One guy agreed with me, one guy disagreed. Looking at the tape, nine times out of 10 it would never be called a foul."

With just the Olympic and defending world champion, Irving Saladino, still to register a jump Rutherford thought his final was over. But the Panamanian fouled his third attempt, and miraculously Rutherford was through.

The Briton said he wanted to be "professional" about the events, adding, "the one difference it would have made if I'd have got the 8.18 out there I could have relaxed a hell of a lot more." In the end, though, he was philosophical, reiterating the ankle injuries, repetitive tonsillitis and kidney and lung infections that have plagued his career. "I came here with a season's best of 8.06m at the back end of illness and injury and I still managed fifth in the world." Chris Tomlinson finished eighth, with 8.06m.

The American Dwight Phillips won gold, as expected, laying down 8.54m with his second attempt. Only South Africa's Godfrey Khotso Mokoena came close with 8.47m to take silver. Australia's Mitchell Watt took bronze.

The competition held extra significance yesterday as the families of the 1936 long jump gold and silver Olympic medallists – Jesse Owens and Lutz Long – travelled to the Olympiastadion in Berlin to present the medals. The extraordinary story of how Lutz helped Owens to qualify for the final – shunning Nazi ideology to advise him to move his marker back – warmed hearts around the world and the two became friends, their families keeping in touch even after Lutz died in the second world war.

Their descendants spoke about returning to the arena where their grandfathers first met. Kai Long, Lutz's son, refused to cast his father as a political hero. "It was not a question of race, black or white, it was just the spirit of the old amateurs. In those days it was totally normal in the spirit of [Pierre de] Coubertin [the founder of the International Olympic Committee] to help each other. So what my father did probably happened several times during the 1936 Olympics." The families sat in the same area of the stadium from which Hitler had watched the Games.

Britain's women's 4x100m team finished sixth in their final, while both men and women's 4x400m teams qualified for tonight's final.